Sunday, March 30, 2008

Lot's of great comments on my last blog concerning Vitamin D and testosterone. A few commenters rightly took me to task for my less than rigorous data regarding the association between my Vitamin D intake and my testosterone level. So, here is what we can say.

1. For my "n of one" study there is an "association" between between Vitamin D and testosterone levels. However, it cannot be concluded it is causative. It could be that can of "Coke Zero" I drink every day that's doing the trick!

2. It is not outrageous to speculate that there could be a link between Vitamin D and testosterone given chemistry. We just cannot prove it with my results. There is some excellent material on Vitamin D pharmacology put out by the Vitamin D Council (really level-headed stuff not marketing hyperbole) and for those who lean toward the "geeky" side this cite from AACC is nice.

3. It is unlikely my low testosterone stayed high several years after stopping my use of topical testosterone. What I really need to do is stop the Vitamin D for several months and re-check my testosterone to see if it goes lower. The problem is that Vitamin D is good for so many other things that it does not seem appropriate to discontinue it. Perhaps a new Track Your Plaque Virtual Clinical Trial might be useful where we measure "before" and "after" testosterone levels.

We certainly need more clinical data on the relationship between Vitamin D and testosterone. We have chicken data (and more chicken data here - what is it with chickens anyway) and we have rat data that suggests Vitamin D increases male (rat) fertility but we just do not have anything that says Vitamin D increases human testosterone (yet).

14
comments:

Anonymous
said...

Just to follow up on my comments on your last Testosteone/ Vitamin D post. My inial D Testosterone level was 221 after going on Testosterone cream to increase levels i got it up to 776. However because as you mentioned it lowers HDL so I went off. 2 years later with NO Vitaminn D supplementation my Testosterone level was still 742, I'm not a Dr. so i can't explain it, although as I mentioned I am a patient of Dr. Davis. By the way he has told me he's not aware of Vitamin D raising Testosterone levels in humans. Nice placebo effect.

Yeah, some days I'm happy with just a placebo effect! It is unusual that we both have maintained our testosterone level after going off the cream. I would REALLY like to get to the bottom of this. SOMETHING is causing our testosterone to remain elevated. Clearly, any D effect is speculative (especially since we now have "virtual clinical trial" with two people it each having opposing observations). Let me know if you want to discuss it further in private. Maybe we can shed some additional light on this effect by further examining our regimens. You can e-mail me at hearthawk(at)wi.rr.com. Just replace the "(at)" with "@" when actually sending the e-mail(this is a trick that keeps my e-mail off automated lists).

Hearthawk, the table you show in your March 22 blog is a bit confusing, in that you don't specify how long you were using topical testosterone before you got the 774 reading on 02/06/03. The table makes it look like the topical testosterone was started on 02/06/03 at the same time the test was done.

It seems possible that using topical testosterone for a year or two results in a persistent increase in blood levels that has lasted for several years after stopping the topical cream, at least for you and also the above anonymous poster, who wasn't using Vitamin D. That suggests that somehow the topical testosterone kick-started the increase, which the body then continued for an extended period. That is the converse of the caution that I've heard about using supplemental testosterone - it supposedly will cause the body to shut down or at least reduce its natural ability to create testosterone, making your level lower than before if you ever stop the topical testosterone.

Since anonymous got the same result that you did but without Vitamin D supplementation, either the kick-start theory is valid (which I doubt), or there is some other mechanism that is keeping both your testosterone levels up. Since both you and anonymous are following Dr. Davis' TYP program, it could be that some other aspect of the program is responsible for the continuing high testosterone levels. For example fish oil, niacin, l-arginine, or lo-carbing could be what is doing it. If you and anonymous did a careful, detailed comparison of when you each started various diets, supplements and drugs, and when you had tests done, you might be able to deduce what might have caused the persistent high testosterone level you both exhibit.

I'll have another data point for comparison soon, because I had a borderline low testosterone level a few years ago, and I'm about to get it tested again. I've been following most of the TYP program including taking 4000-6000 IU of Vitamin D for a year, with a 25OHvitD3 level of 51 six months ago, so the upcoming tests should show if Vitamin D, niacin, fish oil, and a statin without topical testosterone (which I've never tried) will elevate testosterone blood levels. If my level is still low, I'll try to get my Dr. to prescribe topical testosterone to see what that does.

Yes, your data would prove interesting. It is too bad that there are so many confounding factors in play. It would take hundreds of data points to ferret out a causitive therapeutic combination. I got a sneak preview of the new tools and community functions on the new TYP website thats in the works - AWESOME (of course I helped design a few of 'em). They could really help at least point us in the right direction. Time will tell but this could be big. Imagine thousands of people entering their lipids and other vitals in a huge database with online software that resembles stock tracking tools allowing you to slice, dice, and graph the results any way you want! Makes a numbers guy like me drool!

Hello. Though I love Vit. D, I believe the opposite could be true in this case. You see, Vit. D and Vit. A compete for the same receptor sites in the body, and Vit. A has been shown to be critical for testosterone production. Take a look at this article. http://www.westonaprice.org/men/vitaminabodybuilding.html

Also, I've been taking extremely high levels of Vit. D for the past year or so, and I just did a testosterone test, both free, bound, and total. My levels all went down in the last year. Coincidence? I don't know.

I know one thing. I will start taking my Vit. A in higher amounts to compensate for the Vit. D intake. Best, Trace D. FarleyEmail Tracemins1@aol.com for feedback.

Under which condition would I consider myself "cured" of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)?

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